IS suicide attack kills 2 Iraqi generals

BAGHDAD - In a further setback to the faltering American and Iraqi campaign to retake Anbar province from the Islamic State, two Iraqi generals were killed in a suicide attack by the group Thursday morning outside Ramadi.

Two explosives-rigged U.S.-made Humvees, presumably seized on the battlefield from the Iraqi army, exploded near the generals' convoy, according to Gen. Noman al-Zawbawy, an Iraqi army commander stationed in Anbar.

The Islamic State's methodical seizing of large stores of ammunition, equipment and vehicles that the U.S. government had provided to the Iraqi army has given the jihadis a powerful edge on the battlefield over the past year.

The use of U.S. Humvees, in particular, has allowed members of the Islamic State to appear as Iraqi soldiers, as they did Thursday, to get close enough to high-level officers to unleash suicide attacks to devastating effect. The attack on Thursday killed Maj. Gen. Abdulrahman Abu Ragheef, the deputy head of the Anbar Operations Command - who was in charge because the head of the command was wounded a few days ago - and Brig. Gen. Safeen Abdulmajid, the head of the Iraqi army's 10th Division.

The generals were killed in the morning, and by the afternoon pictures of their coffins at a funeral procession in Baghdad's Green Zone, attended by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, were shown on state television. It was a reminder to the Iraqi public of the great costs of the campaign for Anbar province, which has been continuing for months now with the support of U.S. air power.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, an Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, said, "We will get revenge for them sooner or later. We have lost commanders before during the battle against ISIS, but we will never stop until we defeat them."

In a statement on social media, the Islamic State took responsibility for the attack, saying it was by four suicide bombers.

Much of Anbar province, which is predominantly Sunni, has been in the hands of the Islamic State for more than a year.